The present invention relates to restaurant menus. In particular, the present invention relates to a restaurant menu dynamically generated based on revenue management information.
Typically, a restaurant, such as a sit down restaurant, gives each customer a menu listing a number of items and associated prices. Menu items can include, for example, appetizers, salads, main dishes and drinks. The menus are pre-printed and every customer that visits the restaurant receives an identical menu. The price of each item on the menu is determined by the restaurant based on, for example, the expected food costs associated with the item and the expected popularity of the item.
Because of the time required to select menu items and to determine appropriate prices, a restaurant generally updates its menu infrequently, such as once per season or even once per year. In addition to the time required to update the menu, a restaurant may need to train employees and reconfigure automated order-taking devices with respect to new items on the menu and/or new prices.
As a result of being updated so infrequently, a restaurant menu does not take advantage of current revenue management information. For example, an item may currently be more popular, that is, in higher xe2x80x9cdemand,xe2x80x9d than predicted, and therefore the item""s price on the pre-printed menu will be too low. Likewise, an item may turn out to be less popular and have a price that is too high. In either case, the restaurant may not be making as much profit as it could.
In addition to an item""s popularity, the amounts of various ingredients currently available in the kitchen""s pantry, or the restaurant""s xe2x80x9csupplyxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cinventory,xe2x80x9d are not typically used to adjust prices on a pre-printed menu. For example, a restaurant may have an unusually large number of steaks in the pantry. In this case, the restaurant may lose money if some of the steaks are not sold and are ultimately discarded. It may be preferable to slightly reduce the price of some items on the menu, if more efficient use of the restaurant""s inventory is made.
To solve this problem, a restaurant may introduce a number of weekly, or even daily, items, or xe2x80x9cspecials,xe2x80x9d selected to efficiently use current inventory. Such specials may be orally presented by a server, hand written on a display board or included on a small piece of paper attached to the regular pre-printed menu. This approach, however, is only of limited use because a relatively small number of specials can realistically be offered. Moreover, the specials do not change the price of existing items on the menu.
In addition to not dynamically adjusting prices on a menu, a restaurant does not dynamically adjust which items are included on a menu. For example, when a restaurant temporarily runs out of a particular item, customers may still attempt to order the item only to be told that the item is not available. This may frustrate customers and complicate the order taking process.
Even if a menu could be generated on a dynamic basis to reflect, for example, the current supply and demand of various items on the menu, problems would arise when calculating a bill for a particular customer. For example, if each customer""s menu had a unique set of menu items and/or prices, a server may need to manually calculate a bill for each customer based on the particular order and the particular set of prices on that menu.
Moreover, dynamically generating prices on a menu could upset some customers. For example, a customer that frequently visits a restaurant may prefer that his or her favorite item always has the same price. On the other hand, customers that do not frequently visit the restaurant, and who therefor are not familiar with the xe2x80x9cusualxe2x80x9d prices for items on the menu, may have no such problem. Similarly, a restaurant may want to consider the needs of a frequent customer, such as a customer that orders a steak dinner every Friday at 7:00 p.m., when determining whether the current inventory justifies including an item on a non-frequent customer""s menu.
In addition to a pre-printed xe2x80x9cgeneralxe2x80x9d menu, a restaurant may also have, for example, a pre-printed dessert menu and/or a pre-printed child""s menu. These menus have the same limitations discussed about the respect to general menus.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,553,222 to Kurland et al. discloses an integrated restaurant communication system that dynamically updates a menu displayed on a video monitor. The menu can be updated, for example, at a manager""s discretion. The Kurland patent does not address the automated use of supply and demand information to dynamically adjust items and prices on a restaurant menu.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,530,067 to Dorr discloses a restaurant management information and control system. A central processor computes restaurant management information, such as the popularity of items on the menu and the current inventory of the restaurant. The Dorr patent does not disclose that this information could be used to dynamically adjust items and prices on the restaurant""s menu.
To alleviate the problems inherent in the prior art, the present invention introduces systems and methods that provide a restaurant menu dynamically generated based on revenue management information.
In one embodiment of the present invention, a price associated with a menu item is automatically determined based at least partly on revenue management information. A request for a menu is received and a menu, including the automatically determined price, is generated in response to the request.
With these and other advantages and features of the invention that will become hereinafter apparent, the nature of the invention may be more clearly understood by reference to the following detailed description of the invention, the appended claims and to the several drawings attached herein.